Kerry to offer Russia military coordination on Syria: Washington Post

Reuters Staff

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks with representatives of local youth during a walk in a street in Tbilisi, Georgia, July 6, 2016. REUTERS/David Mdzinarishvili

PARIS (Reuters) - The United States will propose increasing military cooperation and sharing intelligence with Russia to identify and target Islamic State and al Qaeda headquarters, training camps and supply routes in Syria, the Washington Post reported.

The extent of coordination set out in the document would represent a major shift after years of rivalry between Washington and Moscow, who support opposing sides in Syria’s five-year-old civil war.

The proposal, set out in a document published by the newspaper, will be presented by Secretary of State John Kerry during a visit to Moscow on Thursday, it said.

Kerry declined to comment when asked about the report. “I’ll have comments, going to Moscow, meeting with President Putin tonight; we’ll have plenty of time to talk about it and I’ll give you all a sense of where we are,” he told reporters in Paris.

A senior State Department official told Reuters that Kerry would discuss how to deal with Islamic State and al Qaeda in Syria, as well as efforts to reduce the violence, allow humanitarian access and move towards political transition.

“At present we are not conducting or coordinating military operations with Russia, nor is it clear we will reach an agreement to do so,” the official said.

The document published by The Washington Post called for intelligence sharing to identify leadership targets, training camps, supply lines and headquarters of the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. Strikes against those targets could be carried out by U.S. or Russian jets.

It said that expanded coordination between the United States and Russia would be channeled through a Joint Implementation Group, based in the vicinity of the Jordanian capital Amman.

Reporting by David Brunnstrom in Paris,; Writing by Dominic Evans, Editing by Angus MacSwan